HISTORICAL

BACKGROUND
OF
ABNORMAL
PSYCHOLOGY
 PRE-HISTORIC AND ANCIENT BELIEFS
• DEMONOLOGY
TREATMENT: TREPHINING
HISTORICAL
PERSPECTIVES
ON
ABNORMAL
BEHAVIOR • EXORCISM
• NATURALISTIC EXPLANATION (GRECO-ROMAN THOUGHT)
• HIPPOCRATES
BRAIN PATHOLOGY
Heredity and environment important factors
in psychopathology.

MENTAL ILLNESS INTO 3 CATEGORIES:

- MANIA
- MELANCHOLIA
- PHRENTIS (BRAIN FEVER)
• PHILOSOPHER PLATO AND THE GREEK PHYSICIAN GALEN

GREEKS NAMED THE DISORDER HYSTERIA (FROM THE GREEK WORD HYSTERIA, WHICH
MEANS UTERUS).

TREATMENT:
1. USE OF STRONG SMELLING SUBSTANCES TO DRIVE THE UTERUS TO ITS
PROPER PLACE.
2. COMBINATION OF PHYSIOLOGICAL INTERVENTIONS AND INCANTATIONS
TO THE GODS TO ASSIST IN THE HEALING PROCESS
• HIPPOCRATIC GALENIC APPROACH: HUMORAL THEORY
1. Blood - heart
2. Phlegm - brain
3. Yellow bile - liver
4. Black bile –spleen
• TREATMENT: RESTORATION OF THE BALANCE OF THE HUMORS
THROUGH:

1. BLEEDING A PATIENT
2. REST, RELAXATION, CHANGE OF CLIMATE OR SCENERY
3. CHANGE OF DIET
4. TEMPERATE LIFE
• REVERSION TO SUPERNATURAL EXPLANATIONS (THE
MIDDLE AGES)

- SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY

A. The Dark Ages (Fifth through Tenth Centuries)

- Natural and supernatural explanations of illness were fused.
- Treatment sometimes consisted of torturous exorcistic
procedures seen as appropriate to combat Satan and eject
him from the possessed person’s body.
B. MASS MADNESS (THIRTEENTH CENTURY)
- MASS MADNESS, OR GROUP HYSTERIA
- TARANTISM
- SAINT VITUS’ DANCE
- LYCANTHROPY
C. WITCHCRAFT (FIFTEENTH THROUGH SEVENTEENTH
CENTURIES)
- SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS REFORMERS INCREASINGLY
CHALLENGED THE AUTHORITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
D. THE RISE OF HUMANISM (THE RENAISSANCE)
- The new way of thinking held that if people were “mentally ill” and not
possessed, then they should be treated as though they were sick.
Humanism: a philosophical movement that emphasizes human welfare
and the worth and uniqueness of the individual.

- The term bedlam

- In 1563, Johann Weyer (1515–1588), a German physician, published a
revolutionary book that challenged the foundation of ideas about witchcraft.
E. THE REFORM MOVEMENT (EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH
CENTURIES)
- Moral treatment movement
- Philippe Pinel
- William Tuke (1732–1822)

In the United States, three individuals—Benjamin Rush, Dorothea Dix, and

Clifford Beers—made important contributions to the moral treatment
movement.
CAUSES: EARLY VIEWPOINTS
Two early schools of thought:
1. Organic or biological viewpoint
Wilhelm Griesinger (1817–1868)
Emil Kraepelin (1856–1926) - syndromes
- He attributed all disorders to one of four organic causes: metabolic
disturbance, endocrine difficulty, brain disease, or heredity.
In his Textbook of Psychiatry (1883/1923), Kraepelin outlined a system for
classifying mental illnesses on the basis of their organic causes.
The system was the original basis for the diagnostic categories in the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the
classification system of the APA.
- The biological viewpoint gained even greater strength with the discovery of
the organic basis of general paresis.
- The work of Louis Pasteur (1822–1895)
- In 1897, Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840–1902),
- In 1905, a German zoologist, Fritz Schaudinn (1871–1906)
2. The Psychological Viewpoint
Mesmerism and Hypnotism - Friedrich Anton Mesmer (1734–1815) - hysteria

The Nancy School

Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893), a neurosurgeon at La Salpêtrière
Hospital in Paris and the leading neurologist of his time.
Two physicians who influenced Charcot to condider hypnotism:

Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault (1823–1904) and Hippolyte-Marie Bernheim

(1840–1919)

Breuer and Freud

Josef Breuer (1842–1925) - The cathartic method

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) - Behaviorism

END OF PRESENTATION